Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to overload protection in a communication network. In particular, the invention relates to a mechanism for overload protection by dropping messages communicated based on a security protocol, e.g. the Diameter protocol.
Related Background Art
The following meanings for the abbreviations used in this specification apply:                DRA Diameter Routing Agent        HSS Home Subscriber Server        MME Mobility Management Entity        
When a server of a communication network is under high load it may request its clients to adopt message throttling. For example, messages sent from the clients to the server should be reduced by a throttling factor of 10%. Then, clients supporting the message throttling throttle outgoing traffic towards the sever by dropping one out of ten messages. If this does not result in sufficient load reduction, the server may request the clients to drop more (e.g. 20%) messages. When the (over)load situation in the server becomes more relaxed the server may indicate to the clients that the throttling factor can be lowered or even throttling is no longer required.